Wednesday, December 14th

Yesterday was the kind of day where I aaaaaaaalmost bit off more than I could chew. I had to go to Melrose to take inventory at Shake Rag, and Mariana was coming over to do a work photo shoot so we could make some new ads to run on Ravelry, and for some reason I had it in my head as I was driving back from Melrose that I’d have time to dye yarn as well. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Even though I had about ten orders to put together, package, and take to the post office; and they weren’t small orders, which mean each one would take at least 20 minutes to wrap, pack, and label. Did you do that math in your head? Ten times twenty minutes is more than three hours. Which I put together, after I had started soaking the yarn, and so I never did start dyeing. Good thing, too – I didn’t even have time to get all ten packages together, I had to stop at six at 4:40 so I could get to the post office … and sure enough, I got there at about 4:55. Living on the edge! WoooooO!

Yesterday’s photo is of my soap display at the gift shop in Shake Rag. If you’re out near Melrose way, I recommend stopping in! They have coffee and snacks on Wednesday mornings, and live music in the church part. Yesterday it was the second time I’ve gone there and seen Karan Newman, who is the wife of a former co-worker (from That Place I mentioned yesterday). They’ve got the gift shop all decked out in Christmas right now, and it’s just so picturesque.

I love Christmas. I feel like I’m the only one of my friends who does; they’re all so much more in to Thanksgiving (which for some reason my Spell-check just wanted to change to “Transshipping”), or Halloween. But Christmas always has been and always will be my favorite. I love Christmas trees. I love the smell of them, the pine needles that drop towards the end of the season, and a green tree in big fat old-fashioned multi-colored lights is my favorite color (which is why I usually say “brown” because that’s just too hard to explain). I get sappy over movies like “Miracle on 34th Street” and anything with the Rankin-Bass name. I love to see presents start appearing under the tree for weeks before Christmas. I love Christmas morning, with family and hugs and laughter and “I saw this way back in February and thought of you and it’s been so hard not to tell you I had it!” Tim, though? Not nearly so into Christmas as I am. Before we hooked up, for him – what with not being near his family and all – it was just a day off where he could get some computer reading in. So needless to say, our house is not decorated. We put lights up maybe one out of every three years. We get a tree maybe every five. Presents don’t appear until about a day before, when I pack what little I have made into a box to take to Aunt Gay and Uncle Joe’s house. I’ve tried bringing them out into the living room a couple of weeks before, but Tim doesn’t bring any out of his office so they just look lonely. I don’t like knowing what all of them are, shouldn’t there be a surprise there for me? The wooden ornaments I have that I remember making with G-ma when I was four or five years old, don’t have a place to hang. My old miniature German set of lead figurines of skaters and carolers and park benches aren’t out on display out of the reach of Tiny Kittens. Every year this happens I feel my heart close up just a little bit more.  Soon I will be Scrooge.

WELL NOW THAT EVERYONE IS HAPPY.

I have a busy day ahead. I was supposed to fire the kiln today, but haven’t had time to glaze what I needed to glaze to fill it. And I need to dye yarn. So. Glazing. Dyeing yarn. Packages packaged and to the post office. Cookies need to be baked before that, so I can take those to the post office as well. And spinning with friends at 6. Day, ho!